POTATO BREEDING AND SELECTION. O 
In the case of selection, the limitations are those found within the 
varieties themselves. 
Potato breeding, therefore, may be said to involve the raising of 
seedlings from hand-pollinated or self-fertilized seeds. It becomes 
intelligent breeding only when it deals with seedlings produced from 
hand cross-pollinated flowers protected from insects and borne on 
plants possessing certain characteristics which it seems desirable to 
combine in the resultant progeny. In other words, intelligent plant 
breeding requires the same careful consideration of the parent plants 
that is given to the selection of the male and female by the progres- 
sive up-to-date animal breeder. Selection plays a very important 
role in this kind of breeding. 
EARLY ATTEMPTS AT POTATO BREEDING. 
The first serious attempt at potato breeding in the United States 
of which the writer has any knowledge was made by Rev. C. E. 
Goodrich, of Utica, N\ Y. 1 The incentive for this effort was furnished 
by the widespread occurrence of potato blight, both in this country 
and abroad, during the period between 1840 and 1847, and the con- 
sequent almost total failure of the potato crop in some seasons. In 
the opinion of Mr. Goodrich the apparent greater susceptibility of 
the vines and tubers to this disease was largely due to the lessened 
vigor of the plants, induced by long-continued asexual reproduction. 
He conceived the idea that the only way in which the vigor of the 
potato plants could be restored was by sexual reproduction. Through 
the kindly offices of the American consul at Panama a number of 
promising South American varieties of potatoes, presumably from 
Peru and Chile, were secured. A seedling grown from one of these 
plants in 1853, descriptively known as the Rough Purple Chili, was 
introduced into cultivation in 1857 under the name of Garnet Chili. 
Other introductions from the seed of these importations were the 
Amazon, Calico, Cuzco, Central City, New Kidney, Coppermine, Pink- 
eye, Rusty Coat, etc. Between the years 1849 and 1856 Goodrich 
raised 8,400 seedlings. 2 
The importance of Goodrich's work to the potato industry of this 
country lies not so much in the new varieties which he himself intro- 
duced as in the impetus he imparted to plant breeding and in the 
efforts of those who followed in his footsteps. Much of this zeal was 
the result of the origination and introduction of the Early Rose, a 
variety which was produced in 1861 by Albert Bresee, of Hubbard- 
ton, Vt., from a naturally fertilized seed ball of Goodrich's Garnet 
Chili. Thus there was obtained in the second generation from the 
imported South American potato, described by Goodrich as the 
1 Goodrich, C. E. Raising seedling potatoes. In The Horticulturist, n. s., v. 7, 1857, p. 273-276. 
2 Goodrich, C. E. Op. cit., p. 276. 
